Especially Aggie, my beloved but overly adventurous speckled friend
Then there are my Acorns to keep an eye on, I added.
Soon after Ben and I settled in Neatslake Id been horrified to discover that the three elderly Grace sisters pensions were barely enough to keep them alive since the General died, let alone warm, amused and well fed, and Dorrie Spottiswode had been in much the same situation. My weekly boxes of fruit, vegetables and eggs, plus anything else I could pretend to have a glut of, helped to keep them all going.
Dorries been really struggling to make ends meet since Tims father died. She could have grown her own vegetables, but shes devoted herself to trying to keep the Blessings gardens in some kind of order, especially the roses, so shes been bartering things for eggs and stuff instead. And most of what she had been bartering was the fruit from the Blessings orchard, I thought guiltily, plus the occasional bunch of Tims grapes from the greenhouse!
Josie, its the twenty-first century, and the way youre trying to live is totally perverseif you can even call all this scraping by on what you can grow living. And you cant tell me that youre charging enough for your cakes to make a decent profit, either.
Youd be surprised! And I only make unusual cakes, which are fun to do. Im not tied to producing boring, royal-iced, tiered onesI leave that to the bakery. And I write my magazine piece every month too, which I also enjoy. Theyre both just a way of making enough to pay the utility bills. And actually, the self-sufficiency, make-do-and-mend, thrifty lifestyle is terribly fashionable again, you know. Thats why Country at Heart did the piece about us.
Yes, but now Bens raking in the money, you dont have to do any of that! Turf the garden, get rid of the hens, and get a life, before its too late. You could even get a flat in London and use the cottage as a weekend place.
I suggested that, now Ben is away so much, but he adores it here tooits not just me insisting that we live like this! He says when hes in London he loves the idea of me in the cottage, waiting for him. And we have a life, and we like things the way they are now, I said firmly, unshakeable (and probably horribly smug) in my conviction that what I had would endure for ever.
But something Ben told me when he got back from London has upset me a bit, Libby Marys pregnant! Its all through taking some kind of Chinese herbal medicine, apparently, not IVF, and its stirred up all my feelings again. But Ben was reluctant to even tell me about it and he certainly didnt want to talk about us trying it.
No, well, if Ben really wanted children hed have agreed to have some tests done years ago, wouldnt he? she pointed out. He likes being the cosseted centre of your world, with you running round after him, and Im sure hed hate to change that.
Ive slowly come to that conclusion myself, though hes always agreed with me that wed like children. I can understand that seeing what Russell and Mary went through, financially and emotionally, set him against taking that route, but now he really doesnt even want to discuss it any more. He goes all hurt when I try.
I cant say I ever wanted any more after Pia, and she was a mistake, Libby said frankly. Not that she wasnt sweet when she was little, its just that Joe spoiled her and she turned into a monster once she hit thirteen.
I expect shell grow out of it eventually, I said consolingly.
She looked thoughtful. I have a horrid feeling that Tim would absolutely adore a little Rowland-Knowles. Think what that would do to my figure! At our age, everything isnt just going to snap back into place like elastic afterwards, is it? But maybe Im past it, she said hopefully Doesnt fertility decline rapidly after thirty?
Yes, but you still have a pretty good chance. I mean, youve already got Pia, so you know you can get pregnant.
Well, Im telling you now that if I do have to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous pregnancy, I dont see why you shouldnt too. Shall I talk some sense into Ben and tell him hes being a self-centred pig?
Absolutely not! It would have the opposite effect anyway; you know how stubborn he is, and the more you try and change his mind about anything, the more he digs his heels in.
Did you get the name and address of that Chinese herbalist from Mary? she asked innocently.
I grinned, although guiltily. Yesshe gave me the website address and I got the contact details through that, though I havent done anything about it. And Mary said it was very expensive.
Give it to me. Ill find out about it and get you some when Im down in London, my treat. After all, if it worked for Mary, its worth a go! And if Tim is insistent, I may have to try it toobut it will be our secret.
OK, I said, because I suddenly realised how unbearable it would be if all my friends suddenly produced a late crop of offspring, just when I thought Id resigned myself to being barren ground.
Chapter Six Hippie Chic
On the recycling front, a friend has given me lots of genuine hippie clothes that she wore as a girl and, although I dont really care about fashion, Im told that this kind of thing is back in vogue again. One of the Acorn members is altering them to fit me and it feels rather decadently pleasant to change out of my workaday jeans into something long and floaty, or sumptuously velvety, in the evening. I dont suppose the Artist will notice
Cakes and Ale
Ben was fairly comatose that evening, after a dinner of globe artichokes with melted butter, followed by stir-fried brown rice and vegetables and a blackberry mouse. It made him reluctant to get all dressed up to go for drinks at Blessings, until I pointed out that Id never seen Tim at home wearing anything other than jeans and jumpers almost as disreputable as Bens usual attire.
Youve got a skirt on, he pointed out to my amazement, because he doesnt usually notice that sort of thing.
Well, I do sometimes change in the evening. I dont live in jeans, do I? I stroked the sumptuous folds of the long, teal-coloured velvet skirt lovingly. This is a genuine hippie skirt Stella gave me. She showed me a picture of herself wearing it, circa 1970, with a headband and moccasins, and she looked lovely. But she cant fit into it now and she thought it would suit me.
In fact, Stella had been sorting out a whole trunkful of clothes, and the skirt was only one of many pretty things shed given me. Fashions gone boho, so I think Im actually very trendy at the moment.
I rather hoped he would think I looked pretty in my long blue skirt and cotton top, but instead he said, with unusual grumpiness, If it doesnt matter what I wear, Ill go like this, then, this being his paint-spattered jeans and a sweatshirt up which he had at some time wiped a loaded palette knife.
FineTim wont notice. Libby says he cant wait to get out of his solicitors suit when he gets home and out into the garden. He and Dorrie are having endless discussions about how to restore the grounds to their former glory. Now, come on, or well be late.
FineTim wont notice. Libby says he cant wait to get out of his solicitors suit when he gets home and out into the garden. He and Dorrie are having endless discussions about how to restore the grounds to their former glory. Now, come on, or well be late.
I put on a long, purple Moroccan cloak with a pointy, tasselled hood (another of Stellas offerings) and picked up a coracle-shaped wicker basket decorated with faded raffia flowers. It contained a bottle of our best elderflower champagne and a Battenburg cake made using natural marzipan and pink food colouring. Libby doesnt know anything about baking, but she can whip up Italian pasta meals at the drop of a hat, especially those that had been her late husbands favourites. I expect shell now learn to cook what Tim likes, being a great believer in the way to a mans heart being through his stomach. I ascribe to that one a bit myselfBen loves my food, just as he adored Grannys cakes and biscuits when we were still at school. She used to joke that he had a stomach like a bottomless pit.
Cupboard love.
Ben always says his mother cant cook and on the occasions when he visits them in Wilmslow, they eat ready-prepared Marks and Spencers meals, though since shes never invited me over for a meal (or anything else), I cant vouch for that. They have never visited this house either, though I gritted my teeth and invited them a few times, until I realised they were never going to accept meor Nell Richards wasnt. I had a feeling Bens father, sarcastic and superior though he was, might have weakened a bit, left to himself. But you can see why it was a bone of contention between me and Ben that he still accepted an allowance from them after theyd snubbed me for all these years!
We walked past Blessings and up the little side lane, because no one ever used the front entrance of Blessings: by the time the bell had been pulled and someone had heard it jangle, then unlocked the big, oak door, come down a flight of steps, crossed the little front courtyard and opened the great gate, set in its castellated wall, the visitor would have long since vanished. Instead, a brass plate and an arrow directed you round the back.
Feeling like a slightly Goth Little Red Riding Hood with my cloak and basket, I led the way to the rear gate and up the short gravelled drive past the empty and neglected gatehouse. I was heading for the kitchen wing, but Libby was standing at the French doors that had been rather incongrously let into the back wall of the Great Chamber, looking out for us.
The two men got on fine, as Id known they would, especially once theyd had a glass or two of bubbly each. Tim might have gone to Ampleforth College and sounded a bit plummy, but you soon forgot that because he was so ordinary and nice.
It still struck me as odd to see him and Libby together, because shed always gone for more of a father figure before (if not grandfather figure!), and Tim is only a couple of years older than she is. And he had a lost-boy sort of air about him that seemed to be awakening an unsuspected and long-dormant maternal streak in her. I was amazed! Id never seen much sign of it with Pia, even though I knew how much Libby loved her. It was all very strange.
The Great Chamber was the first room Libby and I had started cleaning and it looked much better without cobwebs and a furring of dust along every surface. Like all the Elizabethan part of the house, it had had electricity put in at some time in the dim and distant past and a central heating system of old-fashioned proportions and inefficiency. But apart from that, it was very much as it had always been: a large room with a huge fireplace at one end, dark oak flooring in need of polishing and a central spoked wheel depending from the moulded ceiling, which had probably once been set with candles but now held those dim, twisty little lightbulbs instead. There were several windows with diamond panes of ripply glass, which let in the light but left the view outside blurry. From black, wrought-iron poles hung tattered, sun-rotted curtains and, even after unpicking a bit of hem, we had been unable to decide what their original colours had been.
Many of the rooms at Blessings were plastered and studded all over with moulded heraldic emblems, a bit like extreme Anaglypta, which had been tricky and delicate to dust. Wed used special brushes, as advised by Sophy Winter, and great care, especially where faint traces of bright paint and gilding still clung here and there.
The house seemed to have been updated in the thirties and forties, when the new extension was added. Spartan bathrooms had been created in small chambers, and telephone lines, electricity cables and water pipes run over the surface of the walls, seemingly at random. There had been no attempt to hack into the plaster and hide them, but I expect, from a historic viewpoint, that was a good thing.
We each had a glass or two of elderflower champagne, and then Libby went away to find a knife and plates for the Battenburg cake. Shed just come back when the French doors swung open and Miss Dorrie Spottiswode marched in on a blast of chilly air and stood, hands on hips, surveying us with light blue eyes that were a fiercer variant of Tims. It occurred to me that Stella and Marks billy goat, Mojo, had just those same pale, slightly mad eyes, with small dark pupilsBut luckily Dorrie doesnt smell the same as the goat, just strangely but pleasantly of Crabtree & Evelyns Gardeners soap, lavender and mothballs.
Hacarousing, I see! she said severely. With her pulled, blue tweed skirt sagging at the seat and worn with purple Argyll-patterned knee socks and stout, Gertrude Jekyll-style lace-up boots, she cut a strange figurebut then, she usually does. In honour of the evening hour, she had changed her habitual woollen jumper for a silk shirt and pearls, but she still wore her French beret, set at a jaunty angle over elf-locks of iron-grey hair.
Come in, Aunt Dorrie, were just having a little drink to celebrate our engagement, Tim said warmly. I was wondering where you had got to. Didnt you get the note I put through your door earlier?
The cat tried to eat it. I wondered what the soggy bits of paper on the mat were.
Well, youre here now, thats the main thing. You know Josie Gray and Ben Richards, dont you?
Of course I bloody dothey live a stones throw away! And anyway, Im an Acorn.
AnAcorn? queried Tim, cautiously.
Its sort of a barter group Josie set up, darling, Libby explained. They use imaginary acorns for currency.
Oh, right! he said, though he didnt look particularly enlightened.
Anyway, Id have to be flaming blind, deaf and dumb not to recognise every living soul in a village this size, after living here all these years, wouldnt I? And theres nothing wrong with any of my faculties. Dorrie was obviously in belligerent mode.
Of course not, Aunt Dorrie, Tim said.
And if I dont recognise someone, then Mrs Talkalot at the post office soon fills me in, whether I want to hear it or not.
Mrs Talkalot is the name the postmistress, Florrie James, is commonly known by in Neatslake, and she even good-naturedly refers to herself by it. She only ever stops talking to draw breath and doesnt so much converse with her customers as let loose a permanent stream-of-consciousness gabble. Her husband wears a permanently dazed expression and keeps his hearing aid turned off most of the time.
Dorrie jerked her head at me. Old Harry Huttons her uncle and shes a friend of the Grace sisters. Go there for bridge sometimes. Violets useless, but Pansy and Lily arent bad.